-UNDERGROUND STORAGE ROOM-
Silence. Torches illuminate the barren bunker. Cobwebs cover outdated desktop computers and cb radios. Six hearts beat. Rogue finishes stitching Nightcrawler's rib wound. She swabs the stitching with alcohol and he clenches his jaws. She gives him a pill to swallow.
"I'd give you more, but we gotta stay up" Rogue tells an aching Nightcrawler. She looks over and sees Luke Cage wiping blood off his face with a towel. "Where'd you find this place?" she asks.
"It was an old police lockup. Used to store hot goods here," Luke replies wiping blood off his neck. "DVD players, microwaves….stuff that ain't worth a damn now that Kang controlling all the electricity. Man, I wanna get my hands on that creep."
"This wasn't supposed to happen," A voice says from the corner. Colonel James Rhodes lays against a wall with the broken remains of his Ultron suit around him. His voice raspy and dry. His eyes red from crying. "I was supposed to stop this. This is what I enlisted for. To stop evil. To make America something great," More tears "A nuclear bomb detonated on American soil. A warlord in charge. Fury dead. SHIELD broken. Thor dead. Hulk gone who knows where. Janet, Chang, Pym probably dead. We're through. No more Avengers."
"Enough." The voice of a black woman echoes throughout the room. Not just any black woman. Misty Knight. Captain America. She walks from her corner and stands over the dejected Rhodes. "Stand up," she commands. Rhodes shakes his head and looks down. "I said stand up, soldier!" Rhodes looks up at the captain and sluggishly stands up.
"James, you're one of the best men I know. But if I catch you talking like a coward again, I will kill you myself, do you understand?" Rhodes subtly looks away and wipes his eyes. "Yeah, things are bad right now. Worse than they've ever been. But that's why we're here. To face the threats no one else can face." Misty exhales and begins a slow pace around the room. "You wanna know why I enlisted? Because America is shit." Those words draw the attention of the sixth person in the room, James Barnes. The original Captain America, now the man known as Winter.
"You can get killed for having some color. Or who you love. Or how you dress. Or for not having being born with a silver spoon. It's disgusting. But it inspires me to be a symbol. Not just for terrorists or aliens or whatever. For the people that live here. Who look down on me, who think they're superior. I put on that suit and hold that shield to let them know. This is my country. It belongs to me. Me and those people whose mere existence seems to be a problem. We run this. We'll continue running it and defending it until we can't anymore." Misty stares directly at a kneeling Rhodes.
"Fear is understandable, James. I'm scared, too. But I won't tolerate cowardice." Misty looks around the four others, "Anyone else got some yellow in them? Luke"
"Nope" Luke responds.
"Winter"
"Never" Winter responds. Misty looks towards Rogue and Nightcrawler.
"What about you two?" Misty asks. Nightcrawler chuckles.
"America is our home now," he says with a hint of Southern twang in his accent, "And you know what we'll do to protect our home." Winter smirks, remembering Nightcrawler and Rogue nearly beating him to death. Misty and the others look towards a still kneeling Rhodes. A gleam of confidence creeps out of Rhodes' eyes.
"I need a suit." He says.
"A suit?!" Misty scoffs. "Stark had a suit. Dillon had a suit. Drake had a suit. Where the hell are they?"
"Suit don't make the man. The man make the suit. Ain't that –"
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! An explosion above ground rocks the warehouse and startles the crew. They hear metal clanging and footsteps.
"They found us." Rogue whispers. Winter quickly puts his mask on and points a machine gun towards the door. The Captain grabs her cracked shield and positions herself next to Winter, while Luke Cage channels his ability to become a seven foot tall mass of impenetrable muscle. Rogue and Nightcrawler teleport to the corners of the ceiling.
"Lieutenant, do you wanna die on your feet or on your knees?" Winter asks without removing his eyes from the door. Rhodes finally stands up and positions himself behind Winter. "Left leg," Winter quickly says. Rhodes grabs a pistol from Winter's leg holster and points it at the door.
No one breathes. Just the sound of footsteps getting closer.
Closer.
Closer.